


the way out is always through

by katsidhe



Series: episode codas [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cage Trauma, Coda, Depression, Episode: s13e11 Breakdown, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Torture, season 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsidhe/pseuds/katsidhe
Summary: Sam's not in a dark place.Coda for 13.11 Breakdown.





	the way out is always through

Sam can’t sleep, which isn’t exactly uncommon.

He also can’t get out of bed. Which is less common.

Sam just—he feels sick, is all. Grief, guilt, trauma, whatever. Mostly he’s sick of himself. Of his own stupid delusion.

He knows what’s happening to Mom. Better than anyone, he knows. And he knew before Jack showed them, he knew as soon as Lucifer yanked Mom through the rift, and he’d managed to delude himself anyway.

He didn’t say much when Dean insisted that Lucifer had killed her immediately. Pointing out obvious alternatives didn’t feel particularly helpful. Sam knew Mom _could_ be dead, of course. It just didn’t seem very likely.

But he lied to himself. He didn’t dwell on specifics, he focused on finding a solution, he focused on Dean, he focused on Jack. And quietly, half-subconsciously, he let himself hope maybe Mom had managed to escape. To hold off Lucifer, somehow, find Bobby. Or—or if not that, then she was gritting her teeth and bearing it, and the rescue party was on its way, and she would in the end be okay. Or at least as okay as any of them are.

It was one thing to suspect, to fear (to know). It was another to get slapped in the face with a vision of his Mom screaming for help behind the bars of a cage.

And then, because of Sam’s desperation, they forced Kaia and Jack to help them. Kaia’s dead. An innocent traumatized girl they threatened into doing their dirty work.

Jack helped willingly, and Sam isn’t sure if that makes it better or worse. Worse, he decides. A kid, scared to death of his own power, trusted in Sam to lead him somewhere right. Jack wanted to make him happy, he wanted to be good. And now he’s alone and afraid somewhere. Or maybe not alone, maybe with Lucifer. Who has decided Jack belongs to him, same as Sam. Jack's just a  _child_. 

 

Sam gets up because Donna’s niece is missing, and then he and Dean are working with the feds, somehow. They aren’t suspicious of that until it’s too late, of course.

 

The case is nasty.

Monsters are breaking humans down for spare parts, to be dissected and sold to the highest bidder. The video is horrible. Remembering things, imagining things, is the last thing Sam wants to do right now. Not with Mom and Jack where they are.

 

When he’s strapped down to the metal chair, Sam's remembering anyway. And wondering why he thought a case like this _wouldn’t_  get him strapped down to a metal chair. While Clegg talks, he thinks about the market for this kind of thing.

It’s not like, among humans, there’s particularly high demand for live videos of chickens being butchered and sectioned. Generally people are happier to buy a steak without thinking about some specific cow bleeding out. This isn’t about sustenance, no matter what Clegg says.

It’s a different instinct being met here, one that fits better with the gruesome theatricality and the exorbitant prices. There’s a good amount of blood on the walls, but Sam is willing to bet some of the more artful splatters are just paint, given the vivid color. Set dressing, like the masks.

The man in the mask is auctioning off his organs, hamming it up for the camera. He’s going to do a live harvest, obviously, so Sam’s looking down at his white shirt and bracing himself when instead the not-fed pulls out a gun. “Quick and dirty,” he says, and for a moment Sam considers stalling. He doesn't want to die, objectively speaking. He could buy Dean time. Sam could try to prod them into taking it slow, the way the target audience clearly wants, the way their show usually goes.

Years ago, he’d have done it. But now he doesn’t want slow. He’s so, so sick of pain. So he doesn’t say anything, just screws his eyes shut and looks away from the gun and tries not to think. Tries not to feel relief.

Gunshot, and Sam’s alive, and it was a mock execution meant to taunt him with the mercy he wouldn’t be allowed, and now they’ll start in on him—

Instead, Dean says, “Show’s over.”

 

They save the girl and kill the monsters. Doug’s safe, too. Donna will manage. Under the sweetness and the accent, she's made of steel. 

 

In the car, Dean wants to talk. 

Here’s the thing. When Sam says he has hope, sometimes it’s true. Sometimes that’s enough to make it true. Maybe it’s true. There have been occasions when it’s been true.

And there are occasions when Sam stops lying to himself. He’s not in a dark place. He’s in an honest one.

What’s surprising is that Dean’s surprised. How is any of this new, Dean, he wants to scream. We keep going, sure, but nothing changes except to get worse. The way out is through, Dean said. “It ends bloody. It ends bad,” says Sam.

What Sam doesn’t say is: I’m afraid it’s never going to end at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Guess what--I finally made a [tumblr](http://www.intrepidsilt.tumblr.com)! Come scream at me about Sam Winchester.


End file.
